It was inevitable that Amazon would at some point update their Kindle with IR-based touchscreen capabilities. Since both the Kobo and Nook have already adapted that technology with great success. But what came as a surprise at Amazon’s press conference today was an updated version of the basic wifi-only Kindle as well, that’s now just $79. For those not keeping score, that’s pretty cheap. It’s also smaller and lighter than the previous generation Kindles, which was made possible by finally letting go of the keyboard that made the original version so distinct.

The new Kindle Touch also bears a striking resemblance to the updated Kindle, minus the set of buttons across the bottom that have been replaced with the aforementioned touch interface. It also sports a larger 2-month battery—compared to ‘just’ 1 month for the Kindle—and a $99 price tag for the wifi only version. Which makes it the no-brainer choice if you’re debating between the two. Of course if you can’t live without the always-on 3G, that’s also still available for the Kindle Touch, though at $149. All of the e-ink display Kindles also come with free storage in the Amazon Cloud. Which when combined with Amazon’s large catalog of content, makes it really hard to recommend anything other than the new Kindles if you’re on the hunt for a dedicated ebook reader.

[ Kindle & Kindle Touch ]

Like when most people first hear about the concept behind Booktrack, my knee-jerk reaction was to scoff at what I thought was a ridiculous idea. But having downloaded the app and given it a try, I’m surprised to say I’m not completely in the negative about it. In the same way a moving score can enhance a movie or TV show, the creators of Booktrack, including PayPal founder Peter Thiel, feel that books could also be made more exciting or dramatic with a soundtrack of their own.

And after reading a few pages of The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes – The Adventure of the Speckled Band (that’s a lot of adventure!) I’m intrigued by the idea, though dubious of it catching on. The most obvious question one has when it comes to adding a soundtrack to a book is how you deal with different reading speeds. A dramatic sting really isn’t dramatic if it comes at the wrong time. So when you start reading a story with a Booktrack soundtrack, every once in a while you’re encouraged to double tap on a word so that a moving arrow, which scrolls down the page, stays in sync with where you’re at on the page. It’s a little obtrusive, but over time the app will automatically adjust to match your reading speed, and will time the soundtrack accordingly.

You’re also given control over the individual levels for the soundtrack and sound effects, which helps you adjust them so that they’re not too distracting while you read. And once I had turned them down to more suitable background levels, I was surprised to find that I actually kind of appreciated them. But there are a lot of speed bumps to overcome before this idea catches on. The book I read was 43+ MB in size, which is considerably larger than your average ebook. And from the looks of it, that’s on the small side. And it takes time to add a soundtrack and effects to a title, so don’t expect new releases to be immediately available. Like with most ventures like this it’s going to come down to content available, and so far their library isn’t exactly extensive.

[ Booktrack ] VIA [ TechCrunch ]

Converting a CD to MP3 files is pretty much a one-step process these days. (Unless you’re really anal about how the tracks are ripped and compressed.) But converting a printed book into an eBook to enjoy on your eReader is far more involved. And while Plustek’s new OpticBook 3800 scanner doesn’t make it as easy as inserting a book and hitting go, it does provide some key advantages if scanning printed pages is a priority for you.

The leading edge of the scanning bed has an extremely thin bezel which facilitates scanning the pages of a book as close to the inner spine as possible. While the company’s ‘SEE’ or ‘Shadow Elimination Element’ technology removes the shadow and distorted text that usually appear close to the spine. The scanner’s lid also features a very generous layer of foam padding which helps flatten books or pages against the scanner bed, further reducing curved distortions on the scanned page. Unfortunately turning pages and processing each scanned image with the included collection of OCR software is left to you. Of course a machine that will do all of that for you does exist, for a mere $250,000. While Plustek’s alternative is just $300.

[ Plustek OpticBook 3800 ] VIA [ Wired Gadget Lab ]

While reports of the death of eReaders, at least those that rely on e-ink display technology, have been greatly exaggerated. There was a time when it seemed like more capable tablets, such as Apple’s iPad, would be their demise. Their large, color LCD displays made viewing publications like magazines and newspapers far more enjoyable than on black and white e-ink displays. And the ability to instantly zoom, pan and flip pages with a simple touch made using a control pad, or physical buttons, seem downright antiquated.

In fact I’ve made mention of it in past reviews, but every time I introduce someone to an eReader their first instinct is to touch, tap and prod the screen to get it to do something. And I always have to redirect them to a button and explain that the electronic ink technology used makes it very difficult to integrate touch sensing functionality. But all that has now changed. Thanks to Neonode’s zForce technology, eReader’s like Kobo’s new Touch Edition have finally gained touch screen functionality. Without affecting the contrast or legibility of their displays.

And let’s face it. We’ve all had plenty of quality time with Apple’s iPad by now, and have discovered that even the 2nd generation of its hardware is not exactly the lightest and most ideal solution for reading ebooks. Nor are any of its competitors. So as a result, eReaders have been making a well-deserved comeback I feel. And we recently had the chance to try out the aforementioned latest and greatest offering from Kobo, their new Touch Edition, and walked away extremely happy with how far the technology, and eReaders in general, have come. More after the jump.

The original Kobo eReader hit the market over a year ago and shook up the ebook reader market with a $149 price tag. It was admittedly not as full-featured as Amazon’s Kindle and even Sony’s offerings, but it was simple, had a polished UI and just plain worked as most users would need. So much so that it eventually forced the other companies selling eReaders to lower their prices, or create simpler versions that could compete price-wise with the Kobo. It was a great example of why competition is a good thing.

And thankfully the company hasn’t rested on their success. Instead, they followed up the original Kobo eReader with a wireless wifi equipped version, and now the Touch Edition which finally brings the ability to not only touch the screen to navigate the UI, but also a smaller and more convenient form factor thanks to a minimal need for buttons.

In fact comparing the Kobo Touch to the same book I compared the original Kobo to shows that it’s managed to shrink quite a bit in just over a year. It’s now slightly shorter than a standard paperback novel…

…and only just a touch wider as you can see above. Of course that’s mostly because of the plastic border around the display giving you something to hold onto. Otherwise holding directly onto the edge of the display would cause the pages to flip all the time. And of course it goes without saying that the Kobo Touch Edition is far thinner than your average novel. But that’s been the case since day one.

In fact it’s getting down to the size of the iPhone 4 as you can see here, making it relatively pocket-friendly. It’s still not going to squeeze into your jean’s pockets like the iPhone can, but to be honest I’m not sure if I’d want an eReader with a display that small. The Kobo Touch comes pretty close to the page size of a standard novel, which means you can fit a good amount of text on screen without requiring a page turn every few seconds.

And if you’re curious, the back of the Kobo Touch still has that rubberized quilted texture of the previous generation Kobos, which provides a bit of extra grip when held in one hand. I do find it to be a bit of a grease magnet, with fingerprints really standing out against its black matte finish. But it still feels good in hand. And if black isn’t your favorite color the Kobo Touch Edition also comes in silver, white, blue and lilac finishes on the back, which are probably less prone to showing fingerprints.

Along the top edge of the Kobo Touch you’ll find a sliding power switch which has multiple functionality. When you slide it across and quickly let go it will put the Touch into sleep mode, or wake it from it. But if you slide it across and hold it for slightly longer, it will power down/power up the Kobo. And to the right of the power button (as pictured in this photo) there’s a small LED which glows when the eReader is being charged.

On the bottom of the Kobo Touch you’ll find a microUSB port which is used for charging the device, but also syncing to your PC and the desktop application, if you don’t want to use wifi all the time which can be a drain on your battery.

And just above the microUSB port you’ll find the Kobo Touch’s only other button. Like the iPhone and other iDevices, the Touch has a single home button, just below the display, which will return you to its home screen no matter where you happen to be. I’m sure some touch purists don’t think it’s necessary, but I like being able to jump to the home screen with just a single press. The button also sits pretty flush to the surface of the Kobo, so while it’s hard to accidentally bump against and accidentally press, I also find I need to use the tip of my finger to activate it. But that’s a minor complaint.

And while the Kobo comes equipped with 2GB of built-in storage, which in terms of ebooks should last you years and years, it also has a microSD card slot allowing you to expand its storage capacity by up to 32GB. I also find it’s the easiest way to get content from other ebook sources onto the Touch, since it’s hot swappable. Every time you insert a microSD card it rescans it for new content which will then automatically show up in your library if it’s supported.

As for screen quality, the Kobo Touch uses the latest generation Pearl e-ink displays supporting 16 levels of grayscale. In the past the Kobos have always been one generation behind the displays used by Amazon in their Kindle, but they’ve now caught up. So that advantage among the competing eReaders has been rendered moot. And compared to previous generation Kobos the Touch Edition’s display is particularly bright and crisp, and has the fastest refresh to date.

I also like that the Kobo Touch lets you specify how often the display gets an entire refresh. By default it’s set to every 6th page turn, which means that in-between only certain areas of the screen are refreshed as needed. On one hand it reduces the number of times the display has to flash to black and back for a complete refresh, extending the battery life. But on the other hand the image and text quality slightly degrades each time, until it completely refreshes. I now have it set to refresh more often because I’m picky, but the default setting should be more than adequate for most users.

I also have to make mention of how the ‘touch’ part of the Kobo Touch Edition’s display works. If you’ve been following the evolution of eReaders over the years you’ll remember that Sony was the first to release an e-ink device with a touchscreen display. With much backlash from their users. Like the iPad, it used a glass panel over the e-ink display which worked great for the touch aspects, but had the unfortunate downside of creating a lot of glare. Which made reading on its non-backlit display almost impossible.

So instead of placing something over the e-ink display, the Kobo Touch has infrared sensors surrounding the perimeter of the display, which as a result is slightly sunken. From our testing it’s very accurate and very fast, and it can work with even the lightest touch since it’s really just detecting the position of your fingers. Because the display is sunken you do occasionally end up with a bit of shadow around the inside edge, but it’s dependent on the lighting conditions you’re in, and far from a deal breaker.

The Kobo Touch also brings with it a faster 800MHz Freescale processor and the latest generation of Kobo’s eReader UI. Including an extensive array of font and text layout options. I particularly like being able to reduce the line spacing, as well as the margins to fit as much text onto a single page as I can. Best of all, in addition to the 7 different fonts you have to choose from with the latest version of the Kobo software, you can now upload your own font if there’s something you specifically would like to use.

Of course if page refreshes bring you as much a thrill as erasing your Magnadoodle did back when you were a kid, you can boost the Kobo’s font size to ridiculous levels, requiring a page turn every sentence or so.

There are other advantages to a touch screen display besides ease of use however. Tapping either side of the Kobo Touch’s display causes the page to flip forward or back, while tapping in the middle brings up the navigation and customization menus. But if you touch and hold on the display, you’re able to make text selections of individual words or sentences. These can be saved if there’s a particular quote you’d like to remember, or in the case of single words, bring up a definition courtesy of the Touch’s built-in Merriam-Webster dictionary.

And last but certainly not least when it comes to the advantages of a touch screen display is the new Kobo’s virtual on-screen keyboard. Unlike the Kindle, the Kobo never opted for a full QWERTY keyboard below the display, which made doing searches, entering wifi codes and making purchases directly on the device a bit difficult to put it mildly. But at the same time, a hardware keyboard, even a compact one, adds size and weight to a device that strives to compete with a lightweight paperback novel.

So an on-screen keyboard makes a world of difference when it comes to usability. It allows the device to remain small and compact, but also allows a user to perform searches, which as far as I’m concerned is really the only way to navigate an online bookstore with millions of titles in stock. And while the Kobo Touch’s on-screen keyboard isn’t as lightning quick as the one on the iPhone or iPad, it’s still completely usable, and you never feel like you’re waiting for it to catch up while you’re typing away. (Though the lack of a visible cursor does make corrections a touch tricky.)

Accessing the Kobo online store on the Touch, which is made far more accessible thanks to its touchscreen display, is certainly usable. But I tend to find myself using the desktop application more often than not. While the Kobo connects to my secure wifi network without any problems, there are random times when it disconnects and I usually have to just stop and wait for it to re-establish agreeable relations with my router. So searching page after page for something interesting to read can be frustrating when you suddenly lose wifi access.

Buying books is relatively painless and quick though. However, I think it would be fantastic if the storefront on the Kobo indicated which books I had already downloaded or purchased. As it is there’s no indication that something has been downloaded, except directly after you’ve made a purchase when the ‘Download’ button gets inverted. But as soon as you navigate away from that page it gets reset. Basically I’d like it to operate more like the iTunes App Store does, indicating when an app has already been installed.

But overall the on-eReader storefront does a good job at highlighting new content, or popular books, newspapers and periodicals that might interest you. Off the main page it provides lists of the NY Times bestsellers for fiction and non-fiction titles, as well as lists from other publications like the Globe and Mail. And of course being able to just search for your favorite author using the on-screen keyboard is dead easy.

You’re not limited to only getting content from the Kobo online book store though. The Touch supports ePub files, PDFs, TXT files and even images from any source. So downloading content from other online stores is not a problem. And if it’s only available in a format that the Kobo’s not happy with, you can just download and use Calibre to perform any format conversions you need.

Since their launch Kobo has always boasted about their eReader’s ability to natively read PDF files. But to be perfectly honest, I just don’t think e-ink based readers are the best portable devices for accessing PDFs. The load times are relatively slow, at least when compared to accessing them on a tablet like the iPad, and their limited processors make resizing, zooming and panning a PDF less than snappy. The touchscreen capabilities of the new Kobo does make loading and navigating PDFs a little easier, but I’m afraid I would simply never rely on it for that purpose.

I was also pleasantly surprised to discover that the Kobo Touch Edition can read CBR or Comic Book Archive files. Loading up the Watchmen comic required minimal fuss and muss which was nice, but like PDFs, I just don’t think the current crop of e-ink based eReaders are ideal for these types of files. When viewed to fit the screen the text is so small it’s barely legible, and having to constantly pan around to read from panel to panel when zoomed out is no where near as smooth as it is with the iPad, given the way the screen refreshes. So while it’s nice to have, and may work perfectly on some comics with simpler layouts, for the most part I wouldn’t dub the Kobo Touch Edition a great comic book reader either.

There are other surprises in the Kobo’s UI which could one day make it more than just a simple eReader type device. But that day certainly isn’t here yet. Digging through the various settings I came across a link to the Kobo’s rudimentary built-in web browser, which has been obviously buried because it certainly isn’t ready for primetime just yet.

Loading pages and browsing the web certainly works, but it’s somewhat hindered by the Touch’s limited processor, and again, the way the display constantly has to refresh. Just setting up OhGizmo! in the browser to take that photo was a little more involved than it should have been. So while someday browsing the web might be passable on an e-ink device like the Kobo Touch, it isn’t right now.

And if you happen to get bored of the book you’re reading, and decide that the Kobo’s web browser just isn’t quite there yet, there’s another Easter egg you might want to hunt down. If you go into the ‘About Kobo Touch’ section of the device’s main settings, on the last page you’ll notice that one of the names in the ‘Special Thanks To’ list is actually very, very small…

It’s not a formatting error though. Tapping on Richard Penner’s name will bring up a secret Sudoku game that has 4 levels of difficulty, as well as the ability to put ‘temporary’ numbers in each space as you work through solving the grid. I can understand why it’s not exactly a selling feature and why the company makes no mention of it in their PR for the Touch, but I think a lot of users would be happy to see it moved to a more accessible place in future software updates, because it’s actually quite playable.

I’ve been following the evolution of e-ink based eReaders since Sony’s first offerings many, many years ago. And to be perfectly honest, the Kobo Touch Edition is the first eReader I would actually consider buying. I’ve had the opportunity to play with countless models over the years, and there’s always been limitations that have discouraged me from picking one up. One of the biggest of course has been the often obfuscated way the user has to navigate their UIs using limited hardware buttons. The Kindle’s addition of a full keyboard was certainly a step in the right direction. But it had its own issues, adding a lot of size to a device that needed to keep shrinking to compete with real books.

So when the Kobo Touch Edition was announced back in May, I was extremely excited that not only had e-ink devices finally gained touchscreen functionality, but that it came at nearly no cost to their usability. In fact, it vastly improved their form factor by getting rid of the need for hardware buttons.

The best part though is that the new Kobo Touch didn’t come with an inflated price tag ‘justified’ by the new functionality. Like the original Kobo it’s still incredibly competitively priced at $129.99 ($139 CDN) making the decision between it and Amazon’s Kindle, arguably its biggest competitor, more difficult than ever. It’s still lacking the always-on 3G connection of the Kindle (only available in their more expensive model mind you) as well as the backing of the gigantic Amazon ebook store. And the wifi connectivity issues can be a little annoying at times. But in a surprisingly short amount of time the team behind the Kobo has managed to create and position their device as one of the leading competitors in what was once a very crowded market. And if form factor is one of your highest priorities when it comes to choosing an eReader, we certainly feel that the Kobo Touch Edition is one of the best options on the market right now, and certainly worthy of your consideration.

Pros:
+ Finally adds touch functionality to e-ink based eReaders without sacrificing the quality of the display. And the touch functionality is accurate and snappy.
+ Still very competitively priced at $129.99. ($139 CDN)
+ Smallest Kobo ever, whilst incorporating a top-of-the-line e-ink display and other new technologies.
+ Lack of always-on 3G means a robust battery life.
+ Wifi connection lets you go wireless when available, letting you buy books on the Kobo and easily sync bookmarks with other devices.

Cons:
- A touchscreen display also means the screen will get covered in fingerprints.
- Wifi connection was a little wonky and tended to drop out fairly frequently.
- While small and compact, it’s not always the easiest device to hold in one hand.
- Flush mounted and thin home button is occasionally hard to press.
- PDF and CBR support works, but the Kobo Touch Edition is far from an ideal reader for those file formats.

Links:
Kobo eReader Touch Edition – $129.99 ($139 CDN)

If you have any questions about the Kobo eReader Touch Edition you’d like answered, please feel free to leave them in the comments, and I’ll try to respond to them as best I can.

Whenever I show people an ebook reader their first instinct is to touch the screen to select a title or navigate a menu option. When I explain that it unfortunately doesn’t work that way, there’s always a touch of disappointment in their voice when they have to use a navigation pad or keyboard instead. Until now, touchscreen technology on an ebook reader has meant a loss of contrast and clarity with the e-ink display, but not with Kobo’s new eReader Touch which uses ‘Infrared Touch Technology’ instead. They don’t go into too much detail on how it works, but it of course involves infrared sensors, presumably hidden beneath the e-ink display.

Besides gaining a simple and cleaner home button beneath its 6-inch display, in lieu of the large navigation button the Kobo has been known for, their eReader Touch now allows users to do everything from turning pages to typing on an on-screen keyboard to highlighting text to even panning and zooming PDF files (finally!) using their fingers. It’s not only a welcomed addition to the ereader market, but it’s also the kind of thing you wonder how we ever lived without. The Kobo eReader Touch even incorporates a new 16-level grayscale Pearl e-ink display, while maintaining the same battery life of the previous models. All for just $130 ($139 CDN) available in June.

[ Kobo eReader Touch ]

By Chris Scott Barr

Until recently, if someone asked to borrow a book from me, it took no real effort. I’d simply walk over to my bookshelf, grab the book and hand it to them. If I felt lazy, I’d make them get it themselves. These days, loaning out a book can be a complicated matter. With the rise of eBooks, you’re dealing with the same issues as sharing a digitally-downloaded movie or song. With DRM restrictions, you can’t just give them a copy. Thankfully, Amazon has now enabled their long-awaited lending feature to Kindle books.

Yes, you’ve been able to do this with Nook eBooks for some time, so Amazon is behind the curve. They promised us months ago that we would get this feature before the year’s end. They couldn’t have cut it much closer to the deadline. Books can be loaned out for up to 14 days, and as expected, you cannot read your book while it is on loan. What is strange is that the books can only be loaned out a single time. Also, not all books allow this feature. The decision to enable it is entirely up to the publisher, not Amazon.

[ Amazon ] VIA [ DownloadSquad ]

In a few days they’ll be celebrating their first birthday, but Canadian-based Kobo has already done quite a bit to shake up the ebook industry. After it was released, their $150 eBook reader basically forced their competition to drastically lower the cost of their own hardware to a similar pricepoint. And I wouldn’t be surprised to see others copying what they’re now doing with their eBook apps.

Last night we had a chance to check out Kobo’s recent update to their iPad app (it went live as of yesterday) which now includes, in addition to a few other improvements, a section they call ‘Reading Life.’ In a nutshell it adds elements of social media that you typically don’t associate with reading books. But I think they could really catch on. One of the more obvious features is the ability to share what you’re currently reading via Facebook, including favorite passages. And if you miss having a bookshelf full of tomes you can show off to your friends, the personal book cover, which is composed of a collage of titles in your collection, can also be shared if you’re dying to impress people.

The Kobo app also now includes unlockable achievements and awards for reading. Like ‘The Twain’ if you read on a daily basis or ‘The Witching Hour’ if you tend to read late into the night. And each of those comes with a little badge or icon you can collect. The company has also been adding check-ins to select titles which are kind of like easter eggs hidden throughout a book. So for instance the first time you discover the rabbit hole in Alice In Wonderland you’ll be able to check-in there, and of course let everyone know you did via Facebook. And last but certainly not least is extensive statistics tracking for you obsessive types like how many books you’ve read, your average reading speed, pages turned and what time of day you read the most.

I’ve included the full press release after the jump if you’re interested, or you can just download the free iPad Kobo app and try it out for yourself. The new features will be rolled out to other platforms in the coming months including their actual eBook readers eventually, though in a limited fashion of course.

[ Kobo Books ]

KOBO™ MAKES eREADING SOCIAL WITH READING LIFE

Industry First eReading experience with Achievements, Check-Ins, and sharing on Facebook

TORONTO, ON —December 9, 2010— Kobo, a global eReading service where users can read on any device anywhere in the world, today announced the launch of Reading Life, an industry first social eReading experience. Readers can now track their personal reading history, check-in with characters and places inside books and earn achievements and awards for simply reading. Readers can also choose to share books, favourite passages, awards and more with their friends on Facebook. Kobo Reading Life is initially available on iPad, as a part of the latest iPad update in the iTunes store now.

“People who are making the switch to eReading and building their lifetime libraries want an innovative social experience to go with it,” said Mike Serbinis, Kobo CEO. “eReading is going social, local and real-time with Kobo Reading Life, allowing us to create a fun, engaging and meaningful experience for our users.”

Kobo Reading Life for iPad provides an unparalleled experience that enables users to engage in eReading in new ways, connect with friends, and earn awards just for reading.

Sharing Books and Passages: Users can tell their friends what they are reading or highlight favourite passages in books they are reading. This is a great way to get a book club started, or update your bookclub friends as you read.

Statistics: Users can track their reading life with interesting statistics, including how many books they’ve read, pages turned, how fast they read, and times of day they read. Statistics help users track their progress, earn awards, as well as discover and learn about their own reading styles and preferences.

Activity: An activity panel shows the timeline of a user’s reading life, highlighting important events and milestones. Users have an at-a-glance view of their reading life, including new books opened, read and finished, passages shared, awards earned and more.

Check-Ins: Another ground-breaking feature called Check-Ins, enables readers to check-in with characters and locations inside books, enabling them to mark important milestones and win awards. For example, readers reading Alice in Wonderland can check in with or meet Alice for the first time, or check-in to the Rabbit Hole and tell their friends on Facebook.

Awards and Rewards: Readers can unlock fun and surprising awards that celebrate achievements in their reading life. Awards like ‘The Papillion’ which is earned by the power social sharers, ‘The Twain’ earned by those that read daily, and ‘The Witching Hour’ for readers who read into the wee hours of the night – once an achievement has been earned the reader can than publish and share with friends on Facebook. Award winners can also be rewarded with special offers from Kobo or its partners, just by reading!

Personal Book Cover: As your personal Reading Life evolves Kobo creates and automatically updates your own personal book cover – a mosaic of your reading life that you can easily share with your friends on Facebook.

“This is truly a celebration of reading—not about individual books, but about a person’s entire reading life,” said Mike Serbinis, Kobo CEO. “This goes far beyond sharing titles, but sharing experiences in a fun and social way.”

Today, Kobo has customers in over 200 countries & territories worldwide. The Kobo store offers a selection of over 2.2 million eBooks, with titles ranging from the NYT bestseller list, the hottest new releases, thrillers, romance and more. Plus, Kobo also offers access to the most popular newspapers and magazines. Since its launch in 2009, Kobo has been dedicated to an open cloud-based platform, enabling users to read on any device, and with open standards that give users freedom to build their lifetime libraries as they choose. Kobo users can download free eReading applications at www.kobo.com for most smartphones, netbooks, tablets, desktops and macs. Kobo also supports a wide range of dedicated eReaders like the Sony eReader and Nook, and has partnered with device OEMs like Samsung and RIM. The popular Kobo Wireless eReader, an eReader for everyone, is available in stores around the world such as Walmart, Indigo Books & Music, Borders, Angus & Robertson, Whitcoulls, and Swindon.

Kobo Reading Life is now available for download for free from www.kobo.com or the iTunes App Store. Customers who currently have Kobo on their iPad can download the update directly on their device.

A video demonstration of Reading Life can be found at: http://vimeo.com/17575879

About Kobo, Inc.

Kobo is a global eReading service backed by majority shareholder Indigo Books & Music, Borders Group, REDgroup Retail, and Cheung Kong Holdings. Kobo believes consumers should be able to read any book on any device. With a catalog of over two million eBooks, magazines, newspapers and an open platform, Kobo enables retailers, device manufacturers and mobile operators to bring the joy of eReading to customers everywhere. For more information, visit www.kobo.com.

When we looked at the original version of the Kobo back in April we were really impressed at the fact that consumers could finally get an ebook reader for just $149 that didn’t feel like it was made from the cheapest parts available. Everything from the software (including the Kobo desktop apps and store) to the easy-to-hold soft rubber backing gave the Kobo the look and feel of its more expensive competitors like the Kindle and Sony’s offerings, but for a lot cheaper. At the time that is.

Since the Kobo was released its competitors have also released competitively priced models, and while the Kindle with the full ‘Whispernet’ experience is still $189, Amazon has introduced a cheaper wifi-only model for $140, which made opting for the Kobo a difficult decision. In fact the lack of wireless connectivity (besides Bluetooth) was probably the biggest complaint across the board when it came to the original Kobo, so it wasn’t that surprising when a new wifi-equipped version was announced in late September that closed the gap between it and the Kindle again. But was it enough? More after the jump.

Besides new color scheme options and the fact that the ‘DISPLAY’ button has now been renamed the ‘SHOP’ button, there’s little to no physical differences between the original Kobo and the new model. But as always it’s what’s on the inside that counts and the addition of wifi will go a long a way to helping it compete with the Kindle. Of course the lack of a QWERTY keyboard still makes searching and shopping for new books no where near as easy as it is on the Kindle, and I must say that entering a password for an encrypted wifi network is a bit of a chore.

And while you really can’t compare it to the 3G Kindle with its ubiquitous wireless access because of the different price points, the company behind the Kobo has already teamed up with a handful of Canadian companies to provide free wireless access at certain wifi hotspots across the country, and I assume similar agreements will exist in the U.S. as well. So buying books on the Kobo while away from your computer is finally a possibility.

The Kobo store has also grown to over 2.2 million ebooks, though a good chunk of those, around 1.8 million titles, are actually free books. So I still don’t think the Kobo store has quite the selection as Amazon does when it comes to the latest and greatest titles, however, since the Kobo supports the ePub format you’re not limited to just buying titles from their store. I also noticed, unfortunately, that PDF support remains the same as it does on the original Kobo. It’s definitely usable, but there are no options for reflowing or reformatting the content, so PDF documents that don’t fit on the Kobo’s display will have to be shrunk or painstakingly scrolled while you try to read them. But from my testing you’ll be better off to convert them to ePub first if possible.

But wifi isn’t the only way the second generation Kobo was improved. It’s also got a new 16-level gray-scale display that definitely looks a lot crisper and ‘brighter’ than the one on the original Kobo. Now I’m pretty sure it’s still a step behind the displays used on the latest generation Kindles, but it’s not so far behind that I think it’s an issue at all.

The new Kobo also sports a faster processor which promises 2.5x faster page turns, and while I didn’t have an original model Kobo on hand to compare, it’s definitely noticeably faster. In fact at this point the page turn speed is negligible since it’s easily faster than flipping the pages in an actual book. Of course it’s still not as fast as an LCD, but this eReader technology is supposed to be all about emulating the look and experience of printed paper right?

Otherwise the second generation Kobo looks and feels just like the original model, which is most definitely a good thing. The original Kobo came across as kind of the ‘Flip’ of ebook readers since it featured minimal buttons and an easy-to-use and navigate UI. While it may not have appealed to eReader power users, the resulting $149 price tag made it surprisingly popular. In fact in Toronto at least I see more Kobo’s on the subway than Kindles or Sonys, so something definitely clicked with users.

However, in a roundabout way I think the Kobo has turned out to be its own worst enemy. When the original model came out it was a cheaper alternative to the Kindle that provided a very similar user experience, including a robust online bookstore and the ability to sync and read your books on a PC, tablet or smartphone with accompanying apps. Sure, we all complained about the lack of wifi, but that didn’t stop most people from recommending it given the price point. But since its release it’s spurred other eReader makers to drop their prices, or at least produce more affordable models like the wifi-only version of the Kindle.

Now I suspect that a lot of Kobo buyers made their decision for the simple fact that it was the cheapest solution at the time, but now that the wifi-only version of the Kindle is pretty much the exact same price as the Kobo, its main advantage is gone. Had the second generation Kobo also hit the market with a $20-30 price cut I think it would have still managed to be a viable alternative to the Kindle, but now it’s an even harder sell even with built-in wifi.

So if you’re already a Kobo user and think the ability to buy books wirelessly is a must-have feature, or have lamented at the occasional sluggishness of the original model, then absolutely the second gen Kobo is a great upgrade. If you’re looking for your first ebook reader though, it’s kind of hard to still recommend it over the wifi-only Kindle. But, if you can find one, we still highly recommend the original Kobo particularly since it’s now available for just under $100 making it easily the best value of any ebook reader on the market.

Links:
Kobo eReader – $149 (CDN), $139.99 (US)

If you have any questions about the Second Generation Kobo you’d like answered, please feel free to leave them in the comments, and I’ll try to respond to them as best I can.

After spending some time with the original version Kobo’s eReader back in April I felt that even though it was lacking certain features that made Amazon’s Kindle extremely popular, its ~$150 price tag would shake up the eReader market, and sure enough it did. Since its release we’ve seen drastic price cuts for all of the most popular eReaders on the market, and while I still really like the Kobo, with its price advantage gone it quickly became hard to recommend.

But yesterday the 2nd generation Kobo eReader was announced, vastly improving on the original model with the most notable addition being built-in Wifi allowing users to shop and download new titles without having to connect the eReader to their PCs. The Kobo also now uses a faster processor (the same as the Kindle they point out) making page turns 2.5x faster, and a sharper 16-level gray-scale e-ink display. Battery life has even been improved with an expected 10,000 page turns before needing a charge, though a better battery was definitely a necessity with the added Wifi hardware. Best of all though is what the new version doesn’t come with: a price increase. The 2nd generation Kobo eReader will sell for $139.99 in the US, and $149.99 in Canada, available just around the corner in October. We’ll be getting our hands on one in the next week or so, and will be posting our thoughts soon so stay tuned.

[ Kobo eReader ]

Longtime readers might remember that I was really looking forward to Foxit’s eSlick ebook reader since my biggest requirement for those devices was excellent PDF support. And if any company besides Adobe has an expertise with PDF software, it’s Foxit. In fact I had a hands-on with the eSlick a couple of years ago at CES and the device showed a lot of promise, but unfortunately as of this morning it’s become another victim of the recent ebook reader price wars. Well, unofficially at least.

In a press release this morning Foxit announced that they were focusing their efforts on licensing their PDF and ePub software and technology to other hardware manufacturers, and were ceasing development of the eSlick to ensure they aren’t competing with their partners:

Converging on its core business strength, Foxit Corporation, a leader in PDF software solutions, today announced that it will license its industry-leading PDF and ePub technology to key players in the eBook market to help enhance digital rights management, content management, content distribution and viewing technology in the space. The company will cease development of the eSlick™ Reader, its own electronic reading device, to focus on providing platform-independent PDF technology and multi-device support to leading eBook providers.

“We have been licensing our PDF and ePub technology to a number of eBook vendors. Our decision to discontinue eSlick is to eliminate the possibility of competing with our partners,” said Erik Bryant, Assistant Vice President Sales, Foxit Corporation. “We’re looking forward to making the most impact possible on the growing eBook market by providing our proven, top-of-the-line PDF software technology as an industry standard to the principal providers of electronic reading devices.”

However, even though the eSlick’s $199 price tag at one point made it one of the most affordable e-ink display devices, the release of the $149 Kobo (which is based on the same hardware platform) and Amazon’s recent announcement of budget-friendly versions of the Kindle have made that market extremely competitive. Not to mention the fact that the ebook reader market is also slowly being eaten into by Apple’s iPad and iBooks store. So while it’s not that surprising to see the eSlick go at such a young age, it does make me a bit misty eyed.

[ Foxit eSlick Reader ] VIA [ SlashGear ]